In so doing, Roe v. Wade didn’t just protect the right to abortion but to all aspects of personal intimate privacy that, should Roe be overturned, could fall with it. That’s because while the decision affirmed a woman has the right to decide to terminate a pregnancy free from government interference prior to viability, it did so by continuing earlier precedent that embraced the idea of a sphere of personal privacy in intimate relationships. To strike down Roe would require striking at that sphere of personal privacy. Here are a couple of examples as to just how those dominoes would fall.

1. The Right To Raise Your Kids As You See Fit

Conservatives criticize the central holding of Roe and its embrace of a “penumbra” of privacy rights that stem from the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, yet without those protections there is no guarantee the government could not try to further regulate child-rearing. Prior to Roe, the Supreme Court had ruled that a person’s decision to have a child and a parent’s decision in how that child is to be educated are to be considered an exercise of familial rights and are therefore protected by the Constitution.

The decision in Roe both relies on and strengthens that underlying principle by holding that the decision to parent — or not to become a parent — is best made when it is free from unwarranted and unnecessary government intrusion. Without that privacy right, the government could further dictate child-rearing decisions, including outlawing homeschooling or taking away school choice from parents.

2. The Right To Keep, Or Not Keep Your Family Ties

Similar to familial rights to make parenting decisions free from unnecessary government intervention, the very same privacy rights protected by Roe also protects family decisions of how, and who, we can call family. For example, the Supreme Court has held that state zoning regulations that prevented close relatives from living together violated this privacy right embedded in Roe and that the decision is one that courts have used to consistently acknowledge a ‘private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.’ That means states cannot reasonably outlaw co-habitation of consenting adults or place unreasonable restrictions on single-sex housing. For example, prior to Roe and the line of privacy cases that came before it, municipalities were free to craft laws that prevented unmarried adults from living together as a way to try and prevent gay couples from living together.

While this may seem like a no-brainer, as our families become more diverse and look less like the nuclear family religious conservatives elevate as sacrosanct, this idea of a private realm of family life becomes even more important. This will be even truer should the Supreme Court strike down Prop 8 and DOMA this term. Our families are changing and, thanks in part to Roe, we can take some comfort in the idea that even if conservatives don’t like it, there’s not much they can do about it. Thanks to our constitutional privacy protections, our families can be constructed how we see fit. Undo those protections and that freedom is instantly called into question.

3. The Right To Keep Your Business Your Business

It’s impossible to discuss personal privacy rights and not talk about sex. After all, the right to define familial boundaries, to have or not have a child, and ultimately to consent to sex all hinge in some way on the idea that sex is something private, personal and not to be shared under most circumstances with the government. Roe’s embrace of privacy rights is what made the push against criminal sodomy laws possible and led to those laws that did criminalize sodomy being declared unconstitutional in 2003.

So yes, the legacy of Roe v. Wade is one we’ve living now in the daily battle against the movement to re-criminalize abortion. But it is also one we are living daily as we push forward in the march for equality for our LGBT brothers and sisters. The details of our most personal decisions do not need to come under governmental scrutiny, nor should our right to make those decisions come up for popular vote. As Roe v. Wade recognized, those rights are part and parcel from the liberty we all are entitled to by virtue of our humanity — an important point worth stressing as the right crows about its plans to undo Roe once and for all.

@Jude H.: As a constitutional Law Professor (Univ. of So. Carolina) when Roe v. Wade was decided, I can emphatically state you are WRONG. Privacy was the precise basis of the decision: Parse this: "State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy." Peace.

HIPPA - abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor. PERIOD. Health Information Patient Portability Act - every other health care procedure is covered under HIPPA, from an ingrown toenail to a lanced boil. This issue is absolutely 100% no different! The sooner the wrong wing thugs are beat back under the rocks where they belong, the sooner the rest of us can get on with the business of tending the lives that are already here and productive or in need of help rather than championing a non-existent entity.

@Jude, because litigation in individual states can take such absurd routes, it's no stretch at all to make these arguments. On another note, I think it's unfortunate that such basic laws regarding human rights can be mangled by individual states. After all, are not the citizens of the states Americans. Seems to me I've heard this idea proclaimed loudly all my life. I wonder how many billions are wasted annually in the state courts arguing ideas that should be universal.
Oh, and I starred Dan B. I don't think he missed a single Republican characteristic!

To anyone who wants to pretend that an embryo (that is what we are dealing with in the vast majority of terminations) is a "person" I strongly suggest you go the library and look up (yes, in a book) human embryology 1 -3 months since that is when most abortions are performed. Then, if you're capable of it, think before you engage keyboard.

@ Michelle B. You haven't convinced me that the risk of loosing privacy is a good enough excuse to murder millions of innocent babies! You are really off topic here. The war in Viet Nam and the shock and awe in Iraq.are really not part of the present discussion. But is it possible that you are one of the people pretending that fetuses are babies ?

Jude H. Actually it is not a stretch It is your personal medical privacy that would be at stake if not for Roe V Wade. That would be stripped from all women seeking an abortion in any State that would decide to require women to give a reason for all of their medical decisions concerning their pregnancy.

If you want a glimpse into a world with out Roe V Wade.. Read "The Handmaid's Tale"
by, Margaret Atwood